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Salvage a "Butt kicking day"

12:09 PM

There are hectic days, and there are days that are all out to whip your butt, grind you to a fine powder and kill you. You know the kind of days where everything you do will end up in a disaster. It doesn't matter how determined you were to start your day right. These kind of days will see you setting you hair on fire while burning your breakfast egg and go from catastrophes to catastrophes until you go to bed exhausted, beaten up and possibly crying yourself to sleep.

Sound familiar? If you say no, I am either going to go on a limb saying you are hiding something, or ask you what your secret is.

These days happen to everybody, and frankly, from experience it is better to accept that any form of resistance is futile from the start. Trying to fight these days, is pretty much like attempting to swim against a hard current : you'll only end up exhausting yourself further and faster (don't do it it is stupid).
When one of these days of hell come upon me I usually adopt a much saner approach: by not trying to make it a better day, but to try to salvage what is left of it.

First, I turn all my expectation on "Low". As I said, there is no point fighting against those killer days, NONE. So I might as well decide that it won't be a day for epic productivity, wonder achievement and gourmet meals. On those days, as a work from home mom, my sole goal is to keep everybody alive, with a huge bonus if I didn't make the shower explode while washing my hair. Get the idea?

I believe a cup of tea can fix almost everything. So, when my world start looking really craptastic, I put water in my tea kettle, switch it on, and back off quickly just in case it decides to attack me and wait for my hot water. Then, I sit down and drink it, doing nothing else (or almost nothing, because watching silly cat videos on YouTube counts as something right?)

I push all non urgent deadlines to another day. Because, let's face it, I'm not going to do a good job at it anyway and it will end wasting my time, and the time of others. On a crappy lousy day, I really only stick to what I truly can't avoid. Taking a new assignment can wait another day.

If I have time, I go get out and walk it off. When frustration gets the better of me and my head is about to explode (possibly from shampoo residues from the shower) I grab y running shoes and go for nice long walk with my headphones on. Will it prevent me from burning dinner or cutting my finger with a piece of paper? Probably not, but walking help me think and put things back into perspective, which might be just what I need to remember there is no point fighting against the current.

Then, there is always the "Cynfull" decadent sandwich. That is my secret weapon, and is pretty much part of my "Crappy day emergency kit". I always have the stuff to pull a chicken sandwich in my fridge...ALWAYS. The decadent version means I skimp on nothing, I go for the whole shebang : mustard, butter, lettuce, gherkins, cheese, and double the amount of chicken. It's big, it's indulgent and it is best eaten ALONE while watching a favourite movie after my daughter went to bed.

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comments

Hi, I read somewhere if you have a bad day you should cover yourself with the blanket of love. Cup of tea, the cup of coffee or whatever and taking the time to connect with your inner being. It's healing. Thanx! Rahela xxx www.raheladrusko.com

Sandwiches are real heroes on a hectic day, not just the super crappy one. If there should be only a few things left in my fridge, you bet they are enough to put a filling sandwich together. I make sure we are never out of staples like butter, mustard, gherkins and some kind of meat, anything else is a welcome extra. Bread is something I always have on hand anyway.

A cup of tea is my go to bit of 'sanity in a cup'. It's magic I tell ya. But what I do on days that are just in a downward spiral is to ask myself 'In 5 years just how important will I think this is?' it's the fastest way to gain some perspective.

I love this idea of putting it back into perspective. I have the tendency to let my worries and concerns eat me whole (though I got better at managing that) so this is definitely something I should try doing.

And there is definitely some magic in tea, I don't know what it is but it works all the time.

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